Again in the Garden

Stay with us, she said, her eyes smiling through the space between the books and the shelf.

We both want you to stay. My hand began shaking and the book fell open on tiles beneath me, Mao’s thin eyes staring up from the page at the space between the books and the shelf where Jen had vanished. Last night happened, didn’t it? she said, materializing behind me, her hand creeping around my waist like a snake, fingers flicking my belt loops. There are worse things than being alone, my father’s voice sounded off from some dusty crawlspace in the back of my mind and I thought of Hector out on the water somewhere, jacking off to her picture in the darkened hull of that boat. What about your husband, Jen? What about him? her voice was gone, replaced with the one she used on the phone with her landlord and the girls at the store. I can’t stay, Jen. Her hand came to rest at the button on my jeans just inches above my rebellious hard-on. You’re a piece of shit, she whispered. And now we both stink, I said but she wasn’t there to hear me.